There is no statute of limitations on human rights abuses.

IRAdvocates has been trying to hold Alabama-based Drummond Company accountable for its human rights crimes in Colombia since 2001. Regrettably, Garry N. Drummond, the owner of Drummond Company who was personally directing and was responsible for Drummond’s human rights crimes, died in 2016 so our claims related to his personal crimes are now against his Estate.

They had been in heated negotiations with Defendants for nearly a year for a new contract and a threatened strike would interfere with Drummond’s coal delivery contracts. After Valmore and Victor were murdered, Gustavo Soler Mora took over as President and continued the negotiations with Drummond. He was murdered shortly after he took over the union.

Based on erroneous rulings of the Alabama District Court, the scope of the trial and the witnesses were limited, and two key witnesses for the widows disappeared before the trial. There is no question that Drummond and its criminal partners in Colombia were behind the disappearance of the witnesses. Further, at this time, there was no Justice and Peace process that encouraged AUC members to come forward to testify, and without direct testimony confirming Drummond’s financing of the AUC, a jury found for the company.     

Identical to the facts of our Chiquita case, during the 1990’s and continuing until about 2006, Drummond aided and abetted the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the umbrella paramilitary group in Colombia that was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2001, in committing crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings, among other crimes. Drummond then engaged in a systematic cover up to hide its crimes, and this involved bribing and threatening numerous witnesses to Drummond’s criminal acts. Drummond and its senior executives used their political power, their significant resources, and their expertise at operating within the corrupt climate of Colombia to avoid accountability. Indeed, Drummond operates this way all over the world, even in their own backyard. On July 20, 2018, an Alabama jury convicted Drummond Vice President, David Roberson, who, acting on behalf of Drummond, bribed Alabama state legislator, Oliver L. Robinson, Jr., to obtain his assistance in stopping the EPA from expanding a Superfund toxic cleanup site in Alabama.

IRAdvocates has since filed three other cases against Drummond for its role in murdering the union leaders, Claudia Balcero, et al. v. Drummond Company, Inc., et al., 2:09-cv-1041-RDP (N.D. Ala.); Baloco, et al. v. Drummond Company, Inc., 7:09-cv-00557-RDP (N.D. Ala.); and Melo, et al. v. Drummond Company, Inc., 2:13-cv-00393-RDP (N.D. Ala.). These cases are based on substantial evidence of Defendants’ criminal acts and other wrongful conduct. All but the Melo case have been dismissed based on procedural issues or a recent Supreme Court decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, which severely limited the scope of the Alien Tort Statute. Even though Plaintiffs established that Garry Drummond made all the key decisions about partnering with the AUC from his headquarters in Alabama and sent funds from Alabama for the AUC to engage in crimes against humanity, this was not sufficient to “touch and concern” the United States, the requirement of the Kiobel case.

The Melo case is still pending, and IRAdvocates will reopen the other cases once we have completed our documentation that Drummond’s key officers lied in their testimony and hid the facts of Drummond’s financial support for and collaboration with the AUC.

While IRAdvocates’ human rights cases were pending, Drummond initiated frivolous SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits against the lawyers who were attempting to bring Drummond to justice in Colombia, including Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of IRAdvocates, along with his Colombian counsel, Ivan Otero Mendoza. Drummond sued Terry for defamation for stating that Drummond financed the AUC’s crimes against humanity, and Drummond sued Terry, Ivan and others under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1961, for conspiring to convict Drummond of its role in financing the AUC’s crimes against humanity. These claims are absolutely frivolous and are part of an unfortunate trend for large companies to sue human and environmental rights lawyers in order to cause them to spend significant time and money defending the claims.

In 2020, Terry, Ivan and Albert van Bilderbeek, who owns Llanos oil, which had its own legal disputes with Drummond, sued Drummond for RICO and defamation for, among other things, falsely asserting that they “bribed” witnesses to testify against Drummond. In fact, they provided security assistance to the family members of witnesses to prevent them from being killed in retaliation for testifying against Drummond and the AUC. Their RICO case against Drummond presents the full story of the long legal struggle to hold Drummond accountable.